Hysterectomies, Health Insurance, and Husbands: TFA Live-Call In #1

Nora started this show because she wants to talk to YOU, the listener, about what matters to you. So today, she talks to listeners about it all : getting a hysterectomy, a battle with cancer and health insurance companies (and how much we all hate health insurance companies!), and feeling invisible in a marriage. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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I’m Nora McInerny, and this is Thanks For Asking, the call-in show about what matters to you. It’s been a minute since we did calls. We took a few weeks off this summer.

We had a little bit of a summer break, but we are back. I’m back in the studio. I am back on the phone and I am here to chat.

So today we have several different calls, which I guess is the plural. They’re going to be different if you have several calls. But we have calls about health insurance.

We have calls about invisible strings, those connections from the beyond. And we have a caller with a question for you, specifically if you are a GenXer, if you are a GenXer who is married or who has been married.

Our first caller has a very urgent question for you. So listen, and then please call in, give us your opinion, let us know what you think. It’s 612-568-4441.

Let’s get to the calls.

Hi, Nora.

I guess I really do need to talk about this. It’s bothering me more than I thought. I’m a 56 year old woman whose body is a little bit out of control from the menopause.

But overall, I’m healthy and I’m smart and I’m a little lumpy, but I got sass. So I feel invisible. Nobody looks at me.

And while I can accept being ignored by the bartender and the stock boy and the cashier and the flight attendant, it’s just killing me that my husband does too. We’ve been married for 14 years, my second marriage.

And I really thought that at age 42, like I had my shit together and I picked the right guy.

This is hitting hard as a 42-year-old who also thought like 42. I don’t know, this is going to be the year I got my stuff together.

Okay. I have two children from my first marriage and while I only want to still living, I’ve done the work to integrate the ache of losing a kid into my life.

And my daughter recently had a baby and she and my son-in-law and my grandson are just the light of my life and I babysit four days a week and it’s the best. But when I come home, there’s no romance, no kind gestures, no sex, no conversation.

We’re very polite roommates, two people with separate lives who happen to live at the same address. And I just want to know, is this just what happens in your 50s?

Like, are all the other Gen Xers living in this weird purgatory where you’re neither married nor single, where you still make them a lunch for work, but he doesn’t notice when you’re naked, where you watch TV together, and very companionable silence,

but you don’t talk about your favorite parts of the movie or what character you think you’d be. That’s why I just need the 50-somethings to call in and just let me know, is this how everyone is living?

Because I just think maybe I could accept it better if I knew that I wasn’t alone. So thanks for listening, Nora. Thanks for your show.

Is this how all the 50-somethings are living?

We’re going to talk to this caller. I was waiting right now, but I do need anybody who is in their 50s to immediately call, immediately write in. The number is 612-568-4441.

I need to know if this is how everybody is living, because as a 42-year-old, I will not accept this in 10 years. Here we go. Hi.

Hi.

Hello, hello.

You can turn your camera on or off. This is your call, so you can decide whether or not you want to have, like, your camera on or off. I just played your voicemail, and I am…

I am stunned, because also you’re so beautiful.

Oh, stop.

Like you are. Look at your beautiful skin. Your eyelashes are like a boom.

Like you’ve, like, I don’t know.

Like I paid like 100 bucks every other week to have them.

You got to. You have to. Whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. I just got all my greys covered up.

At first I was like, I’m going to let them go. I’m going to let them flourish. But like I love this color so much.

And it’s like I’d have to go back to mousy to let it properly blend. I was like, it’s just not, it’s just not the time. I want it, but I want it to all go at once.

I want it to all go. And you’re blonde. So yours is going to blend beautifully.

That was my plan. But then I discovered this hair color looks better on me than blonde. So now we’re at an impasse, but we’re talking about you.

Kills me when women feel invisible. Kills me when women feel, because when anybody does, but I always have a soft spot for women. I’ve heard this from women of many ages too.

Like you cross some sort of invisible threshold and all of a sudden, like you’re not there. But to feel it at home to me, shot to the heart.

Yeah, that’s the tough part. And I think they used to say, be careful what you wish for, because do you ever be like, oh, I wish I had a superpower, I wish I was invisible. Crap.

Shh. Oh, no.

Yeah. Oh, no.

I get a superpower now.

Oh, God. I mean, what was your marriage like before? Like, when do you think this started happening?

I wish I knew that.

I’m not really sure, because you would think, you would think it would be like when my son died from suicide in 2017, you know, when he was 16. But I tell you, that is not, that’s not when it, like, when the whole thing started.

I think it was really a few years later than that, because we really got through that very, like, I mean, as well as you can, you know, like we were, we were really very much on the same page throughout that whole grieving process.

So you know, I don’t, I don’t know that I would have made it through that without my husband. And you know, we made these conscious decisions about life and how we would, you know, go forward and how we were going to keep living.

So yeah, I think it’s just one of those, I think it’s happened so incrementally. Don’t, you don’t really notice it as it’s happening. You just kind of, you’re just kind of in it.

And then all of a sudden it becomes, like, very, very clear somehow.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Yeah. I mean, I asked, I’m asking people for this episode, people who are in their 50s, to call in and give their point of view because I’ve been married for, I don’t know how long we’ve been married, but we’ve been together 10 years in November.

We’ll have been together for 10 years in November. And I, whenever people talk about marriage, I try to think about everything I’ve been told about marriage from other people.

And I have a, you know, I know somebody who has survived a lot in their marriage, right? And the way that they talk about it is that they’ve actually had like, they’re on their fifth marriage at this point over the course of 20 years.

They’re like, yeah, we’ve been married quite a few times. We’ve had to redecide and reinvent this relationship because you change and your life changes. And therefore, like the relationship changes, which makes sense to me.

Yeah.

But what also I’m curious about is like, have you said anything?

Yeah, I think that I’ve said things here and there.

You know, he works in construction, so he comes home, he’s tired, which I really can’t that, you know?

Yeah.

And for a long time, he worked at a job that was like a hundred miles each way that he had to drive every day. So I really expected nothing. So that was, that seemed to…

Oh, Scott, I hate that.

But that made sense.

Like, I was like, wow, I really get being just at the end of the week, you know? So then they moved to a different place. And so he was working out of state like four days a week.

And so then, so it was kind of like, oh, I think that now, when he comes home for these three days, he’s going to be like happy to see me. And I mean, he would call every night when he was away. So it was nice.

Like I said, I said, my God, I’m talking to you more than you’re somewhere else. And I did when you were here because, you know, you have enough energy to speak to me after the workday. So it was nice.

But then that job ended and now, you know, back home. And I thought, oh, he’s going to be glad to be home. And, you know, and I thought he would walk in and say, oh, I’m so glad to be, I’m glad to be glad to see you.

You know, I’m glad to be back here. And it was kind of like he was so glad to see his garage. He was so glad to see his garage and his tools and his race car.

And he was so glad. And I was like, okay.

I love when people like things. It’s just always, I’m always like, okay, yeah, great garage. I couldn’t, I don’t have a garage.

So maybe I’d feel differently if I had one.

But it’s special. I, you know, yeah, it’s a clubhouse.

It’s a clubhouse filled with all your, this is my version of a garage, right? Like all my books are here. All my little treasures are here.

I get it. I get it. But you want to be the special thing.

Like you want someone to be that excited to see you. And I think that’s fair. And I think like, you know, I think that I’m sure that marriage has changed.

I’m sure that all relationships change. And also, like, I, I just have to believe that we can have something better than, you know, just like a roommate. Right, right.

Peaks and valleys, right?

I think there’s peaks and valleys.

But like, I think just the, like, it almost feels like neither peak nor valley nor flatland. It’s just like sort of like a liminal space almost.

Yeah. And I mean, I’ve said things. I especially, I, I was the officiant for my cousin’s wedding a couple of weeks ago.

And so like they had done the legal stuff ahead of time. So this was just the ceremony. But, but I wrote like all these different things, like something for each part of the ceremony.

And there was no podium. So like I had to have it memorized.

Yeah. That’s great. That’s wild.

I can’t do it. I always, I have it. I’ll print it out and I’ll put it tip for next time.

I print it out and I put it in a notebook.

Oh, I had everything on note cards. Yeah. They were beautiful.

They were colorful.

Yeah.

I couldn’t, you know. Oh man.

Yeah.

But, but I said like all these nice things, like marriage is, you know, that, that sacred space is just for the two of you.

You know, where the rest of the world doesn’t, it’s not for the rest of the world, it’s only for you two and it’s where you, where you rest and you regroup and you rejuvenate. And I was like, oh no. Yeah.

Sure. This is what I have right now. And I kind of said that like, this is what I was kind of hoping.

I would like this to be truth, what I’m saying, not, not fantasy.

Yeah.

I think you should say that, Jim.

I think you should say like, look at, look at what our marriage was like. We had so much fun. Like I like you, I love you.

I like being married to you. Like what can we do to make the next 20 years or however long, you know, like we want to be together. Like every, every, I would say few months, I look at Matthew and I say, you want to keep going?

And we shake, you know, I’m like, we’re coming up on 10 years. Should we renew? Like, should we renew our lease?

You know, because it’s so nuts to me. I can’t believe it’s been like 10 years, but like, I, you know, I love a direct conversation personally.

And I like to ask questions of the other person because sometimes I just make up like a whole thing in my mind, you know, like, Oh, sure.

You know, which is, but, but, and also, and also you did not ask for advice, but like, when I have felt like, Oh God, like, I don’t know, just we’re in a different phase where you got married at 32.

Like I met this guy, this guy who I married to when I was like 30, we had little kids, right? Like kids, and it’s just like, that’s a different kind of like monotony almost, where it’s like, I would sometimes not see him for so long.

You know, like you’re going to soccer, I’m gonna go do this. We’ll trade at this dropping point, and then I’ll feed the baby, and then you’ll do this. I’ll do drop off.

You’ll be able to pick up like that kind of stuff. And I would just be so like tired that I couldn’t notice anyone else. You know what I mean?

And so I think I probably made him feel invisible. And like spending time with him with other people helped me like see him more.

Like I would see him out like with our like friends or like you know, like we’d have a dinner and I’d be like, I like that guy.

It’s very interesting how we went through that sort of thing. Like we got married at 42. Well, we went to the senior prom together.

Then we broke up after I went to college.

This is information you withheld from me that’s deeply important to me because I love when people reunite with a past love.

Like a back story, like a good back story.

That’s one of my main interests. Like I can’t believe you would not tell me that you reconnected with your senior prom date. Like that could not be more important information to me.

What could be more important for me to know than that fact?

He never got married. He never got married, never had kids. He told his friend, well, you know, the bar is set pretty high.

And she was like, Jeff, you need to get over it because that’s ridiculous. Yes. I don’t know what that I got divorced.

He kind of found me and I was like, oh, I’m not interested in a relationship. He’s like, oh, good. Neither am I.

We’ll just be friends. I said, okay.

He’s like, me neither. I just never got over you and never married anybody else. And I’ve been waiting for this moment for you to get a divorce.

Wow.

But friends is good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Friends is good. Like I think the basis of like a marriage is like that like deep friendship and it’s also okay to want like someone to be, you know, excited to see you. And I also know like, well, that’s it.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, just to be like, and sometimes by the way, like we were walking the other night and Matthew and I, and I was like, I need you to give me four compliments that aren’t that I’m funny. And he was like, oh, okay.

I was like, right now, don’t hesitate. And you hesitated, like I like threatened him.

Shit.

I was like, I need to, like you need to make me feel special right now. But I get to say that only because like, I think sometimes I have expected people to like know something or like know what I needed without being explicitly told.

And sometimes when I just tell people explicitly what I need, like I will get it. I will get it. Like I’ve always sort of thought like, well, you should just know, you should just know how to read my mind.

And it turns out people are actually very bad mind readers.

Yeah, I know. I know. And you know, it shouldn’t have been like, it should have been, wow, your hair looks fantastic today.

It should have been that instead of, I’m working down at the base this week, I need a lunch. And remember, I like two slices of meat, then one slice of cheese, then a slice of meat.

Yeah.

Okay, I remember. Okay.

Yeah, I know.

It used to be like, I’m going to make him a lunch as a sign of my love.

I’m going to put a little note in it too.

Yeah. It’s a little heart on the outside. And now it’s like, I’m making this lunch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that’s not nice either.

No, but I understand it too. It’s like life is so exhausting. And also it’s like, you know, I know from your voicemail, like you’re watching your grandbaby, like you have other, you know, it’s not as if you’re expecting him.

It doesn’t sound like you’re expecting him to meet all of your needs. You would just like him to truly be excited to see you and like court you a little.

A little bit. A little bit.

You know? Just like court you. So I don’t know.

Be like, hey, we’re not going to watch a movie at home this weekend. Like, I want you to buy tickets for a movie and pick a place that we can go to lunch so we can like actually hang out and spend time together. Have you seen Naked Gun yet?

No.

This is your date.

I’m telling you, you will pee your pants laughing. Go see that movie together and you will like each other.

Okay. That’s good advice. That’s really good advice.

I’m going to try it. I don’t know.

I don’t know your sense of humor. I just know that it’s 80s slapstick humor and that I’ve never heard so many people laughing so hard in a movie theater in this century. Okay.

In this decade, certainly.

It’s probably perfectly tuned for Gen Xers too.

It is. It really is. It really is.

It was so funny and we went, we brought our kids but they didn’t get the jokes, so it was really just us laughing, look.

That’s good.

Yeah. But I hope, okay, when this episode comes out, everyone will hear the question, everyone will hear the question, and people will respond, and then we’ll air the responses because we need to know. Gen X, is this how all your marriages are?

How are your marriages? What do you do? What’s worked?

What hasn’t? Because I’m curious because in 10 years, I’m going to be in my 50s. Yeah.

And I don’t even know how to tell you to like, don’t take this other route.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what I did.

I don’t know. I don’t remember either. I can’t remember.

I don’t remember what happened yesterday. How am I going to know where the…

When I leave my car in a parking lot, I immediately delete the information. I’ll never need it again. My cars are all single use apparently.

So if you think I can remember how I got to this place in my life, when I can’t even tell you how I got to this place in a building, you’re sorely mistaken.

Oh my God. It took me at least three years to learn how to find my way around to my office at my building when I moved to a different building. I’m wandering up and down halls.

Hey, good morning. Good morning. How are you?

She’s so friendly.

You’re like, I am looking for my cubicle.

I don’t know where the hell I work. I’m pretending like I know where I’m going.

When people hand me a map in a building, what do you think I’m going to do with that? A map in a building, it’s just lines. That’s all I see, lines.

Yeah, there’s squares and shit.

Where are you trying to tell me I’m going to go?

Lines with numbers, and then they’re like, what do those numbers represent? You think those to me represent offices and cubicles? They don’t.

Those are just shapes. Why did you give me a bird’s eye? I’m not a bird.

It doesn’t look like that.

It doesn’t look like that.

It does not look like that.

I’m telling you, it doesn’t. No.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t. Okay, and then one question.

Do you want us to, if we do video, do you want us to blur face at all? Are you fine?

Who cares?

Who cares?

Who’s looking? Who’s looking? Come on.

Well, I don’t want you to feel invisible.

And also, you know what I’ve noticed too, is like now when I, because my mom said this too. My mom said, she’s like, I walk into the store, I’m invisible. And like jokes on them, like now I have money.

I’m like, you fools, you made a grave error. And I was thinking about that. And now whenever I think something nice about like an older woman, I will like stop and be like, I love your outfit.

You look great. Because, you know, I’m like, I am seeing you. I am seeing you.

And, you know, that always feels good to me too.

And like, you know, like I said, I’m in my 40s and a woman, her, I mean, maybe 20s also, it sounds like all I do is go to movies, but a woman in her 20s at a movie theater was like, oh my, I love your look.

And I was like, oh my, does she, she left her nose? Like, is she doing what I’m doing? Like, she’s telling me that because I’m older and she doesn’t think anyone has given me a compliment today.

But honestly, I took it. It’s the way that my self-esteem right through the roof. I was like, because I felt so seen.

Someone was like noticing me and noticing like my outfit. And that felt good. That felt good.

Oh, yeah.

I always want to be objectified by other women.

Always.

Take the win. I don’t care if you mean it or not.

Take it. No.

I’ll take it.

No. Keep them coming. Keep them comping.

Keep the complements coming is what I was trying to say. Anyways, thank you for calling. I don’t want you to feel like that.

I hope marriages don’t feel like that. I want a better marriage for you. I want you to go on a date.

I want you to say, like, I really, I need you to give me two complements. And also, like, you know, I don’t know. Also, ask, like, is he depressed?

I don’t know. Ask him. Be like, are you okay, dude?

I said, yeah, I know.

Are you good? Are you okay? Because he seems fine.

He’s fine.

Yeah.

He’s good.

Okay.

What could be better?

What could be better? Yeah, you got a wife making your sandwiches. Garage.

Yeah, garage. Okay? Like, you finally got your high school prom date to marry you decades later.

Like, okay. Goodness gracious. Okay, I want that prom picture if you have it, too.

Just, I need to see that, too. Bring back ruffles. Bring back taffeta.

Bring back shiny dresses. That’s what I got to say. Now girls go to prom and they’re wearing like chic cocktail dresses.

And I’m like, you have such a small window to dress like a cupcake. Take it. That’s your youth.

Yeah, I know.

I know. I didn’t want to show anybody my coochie then and it was probably really nice, but the best it’s ever been. And you were like, no, I will be wearing a, yeah, I had no idea.

I wore a cupcake.

I wore a cupcake. I wore my, I was more bridal on my prom day than I was at any of my weddings. White cupcake.

That big crinoline, I loved it.

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Okay, you go have a good day. Thank you for calling. We’re going to get you some answers and text me and let me know.

Text me some updates, please.

I will.

All right.

Thank you. Take care. All right.

We’re going to have another caller soon.

They’re going to be here any minute. And this is the, and truly by the way, I do want to know, I want to know from Gen Xers, people who have been married longer than I have. Is that what marriage is like now?

Like do you just feel invisible? Is that normal? Is that what’s happening?

I hope that we do better for each other and that we expect more of our marriages and that we do more in our marriages too.

The one thing that I was going to say, the thought that I forgot to finish when I was actually on the phone with her, is that my dad, rest in peace, my dad and mom were married for 40 years. They were barely 20, I think, when they met.

Maybe not even 20. They were married very young. And one, my dad told me, if you want romance, read a book or watch a movie, that’s not what marriage is.

But he also said that marriage is different than a wedding and that when things are difficult, you should think back to who you were on your wedding day and think about what that version of you would say about who you are now and how you’re behaving

in your marriage. And I have tried to keep that in my mind, because I don’t think you’re ever really more in love than you are when you’re standing in front of a bunch of friends, family and plus ones, promising to love each other forever.

So, at some point, we will have a second call, and the topic is insurance. So, our caller wrote, insurance, I was diagnosed with three cancers, possibly a fourth, awaiting biopsy results, in 17 months with four deductibles.

I need a chart to fully understand how insurance works. I faced chemo denial, surgery disputes, and learned about the longer, shorter rule when you have overlapping coverage so much. What does that mean?

I hope that they call in shortly to tell us. Here she is. Hi, Kylie.

Hello, hello. Perfect timing. How’s it going?

It’s good.

I actually just got off of the phone with my insurance to talk about the upcoming history. Hi, hi, Beau. My dog wants to join.

Hello.

Hello.

Yeah. So I am just super excited and wanted to talk about how I have endometriosis. Was diagnosed at 13 because my periods were wild that young.

Yeah.

Okay. Tell me more how you got diagnosed at 13 because we are, everybody I know except me has endometriosis. I don’t feel left out.

I’m so happy to be left out of that. And it has been, everybody has struggled to even get any kind of exam and be taken seriously before they’re 18 or 19.

So I was both lucky and unlucky. So at 13, it was maybe like my third period. I was at school and was just in such incredible pain that I ended up passing out in the bathroom.

And so, you know, my mom came, got me, got me an appointment with my pediatrician. And my mom had been surgically diagnosed with endometriosis already. It was already like a known thing in our family.

And when they did an ultrasound on me, they could see a bunch of little cysts on my ovaries. And they’re like, most likely what’s happening is those are endometriomas. And they’re rupturing.

And that’s why you are like dying right now. Yeah, so they’re like, yeah, you have endometriosis as well, and you should start taking birth control to manage that, which my dad freaked out about.

I was like, I’m not putting my 13 year old on birth control. And so I actually didn’t get on birth control until I was 17. And I was like, I’m going to kill you.

I’d rather have her passing out, throwing up and screaming in pain, than taking birth control, which is for sluts.

Okay.

It was insane. Like I was like, but what’s happening? Like I, when I was 17, the way I got onto it was, I was like, I have been bleeding for three months.

Just straight.

Yeah.

Like I can’t do this anymore.

And if you don’t just let me do this, I’m going to find another way and just hide it from you.

Good for you.

Yeah.

Good for you. Yeah. I feel like it’s, look, we do not take, I mean, even sometimes me too, like I don’t take my own pain, like women’s pain.

I truly remember saying to my daughter, she’s like, my period hurts so bad. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I was like, that’s being a woman, baby.

I don’t know what to tell you. Like, you know, like that’s just, that’s just how it is. It just sucks to be us and, you know, pure lack of imagination all the way around, right?

Like, I don’t know. It’s just, this is a story that I’ve heard before and that I am sorry to have heard before. But so you’re 17.

Constantly.

Constantly.

It’s like the story of everybody. It’s like, it just hurts to be alive. And people are like, well, that’s like a period.

And so like, and if you bleed for three months straight, like, I guess, good for you. Like, don’t do it. It’s gross.

I don’t want to hear about it. Also, I don’t want you to like have any treatment for it. Also, we haven’t really looked into like why it would happen because, you know, it’s just 50% of the population and they just don’t seem that important.

But man, they complain a lot.

They complain.

And they’re always complaining about something. Okay, they always got something to complain about. It’s like, if there were, if a man bled.

Oh, it’d be insane.

It’d be done.

National emergency. National emergency. If they said every month, a man will bleed, a man will bleed out of his penis, they would say, we’ve got to find a cure.

We need to solve this problem right now.

We need to run for the cure.

Okay.

There will be fundraising efforts. A whole, like, a video will be formed. We saved them.

I did, I got one apology from a man in my life.

Who? And when?

My brother. Oh. So when I was younger, right, because my periods were super unpredictable, I would like bleed in school a lot.

Yeah. And just, like, struggle a ton. And that meant that I was bleeding through clothes because on top of it being unpredictable, it was like, sort of, floodgates would open.

So I would just immediately bleed. Like, I was having to change a super tampon every hour.

Oh, my God. And we haven’t invented period underwear yet, you know?

Yeah, it did not exist.

Yeah.

No.

Also, when you’re in school, you don’t control when you can go to the bathroom. No.

No, you don’t.

No. No.

So, yeah, my brother sometimes would, you know, be asked by my parents, hey, we can’t go do this. Can you go and bring your sister some pants or whatever? And he would complain and be like, it can’t be this bad.

How do you not know when this is going to happen? It happens every month. Like, what is wrong with you?

And I was like, I want to know too. I also would like to know.

I would love to know.

But he eventually, as he got older, he became an EMT and he was also like a volunteer firefighter and all that. And as he started working more in healthcare, he eventually was like, hey, considering everything, you must have been in a lot of pain.

And I was like, yeah, I was. I was in a ton of pain. And he’s like, yeah, I’m sorry that I didn’t acknowledge any of that.

I was so mean to you about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s so sweet.

That’s really sweet.

Yeah, he’s a good guy. We got to stick together because our parents are insane.

So yeah, yeah. That’s nothing will nothing will really bond you like growing up in the same kind of dysfunction or tear you apart. It’s really anybody’s guess.

You never know. So congratulations because I heard you are getting a hysterectomy.

Yes. I had been wanting one for a while because I’ve never won kids, which of course, immediately when you say that, people are like, you’ll change your mind.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s only one choice for women and it’s you have to have kids.

It’s truly.

Why? I don’t I don’t need this. I started telling people that at like 12.

Yeah.

And of course, they’re like, you’re so young, you’ll change your mind.

You don’t know.

And you don’t know.

Yeah. You don’t know. You don’t know.

You, you, you the person who’s telling me, I don’t know.

You don’t know. You don’t know that I’ll change my mind. Like I, I’m fully allowed to just have.

Yeah.

I’ve never changed my mind.

Imagine that. Imagine that.

Yeah. And as I’ve like gotten older and my friends have started having kids, I’m like, no, no, this is, yeah, all of this is confirming that this isn’t what I want. I love their kids.

I like being auntie, but I also really like like handing them back and like going and having my life.

Yes. And honestly, I think I, I love women, period. I love anyone who is choosing their own adventure.

And I cannot say enough that like I’ve never once judged somebody for not wanting to have kids or for not having kids or anything like that. Like we need, and like our kids also need people in their lives who are not parents.

And are not their parents and do not have their own kids. Like the Caroline Moss, best friend, a extremely important person in my kids life, like extremely. Like they need, they need people who love them, but are not related to them.

Like, or do not have their own kids. It’s just like, it’s a very, and by the way, like you have your own value outside of other people’s children too. But it’s like, I just like that, that false sort of like.

Yeah, the narrative was all adversary of like, it’s women with kids versus women without. It’s like, no, it is. Yeah.

And even if I like, even if I was like, I hate kids, why do you want me to have them?

Yeah.

Make it make sense.

If I’m like, I hate children, just end of sentence, period.

Well, now you’re going to have five of them, okay?

Why do you want me to have, like, that’s bad for the kids. Like, make it make sense. But yeah, it’s, it’s insane.

And I went to a new gynecologist recently, and because unfortunately, mine was great. And she was trying to help me, but she’s like, you’re not at a point yet where insurance will cover it. So you would have to just pay for it yourself.

How much would a hysterectomy cost if you had to pay for it yourself, do you think?

I am not sure.

I would guess several thousand dollars.

I would guess tens. I’m guessing tens. I’m guessing tens.

I will say, so I had to get an ultrasound.

I had to get a transvaginal ultrasound as well as an abdominal ultrasound before I could have this scheduled, because we have to make sure nothing else obvious is happening.

And just in general, they’re like, if it turns out your endometriosis is bad enough to be seen on an… Because they can sometimes see adhesions and things like that.

And if I did have active endometriomas, they could have seen those potentially and had it as like, here you go, here’s more proof. But my insurance wouldn’t pay for it, because the standard of diagnostic for endometriosis is not an ultrasound.

It’s surgery.

Yeah, no.

But there’s not a single surgeon in the world, at least none that you should see, who’s going to do a surgery without like having that data first. So, and that was $332 for just that ultrasound.

For them to show you something you already knew.

Yeah. I mean, even when it was scheduled, the gynecologist was like, likely everything’s going to look super normal. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, but…

So you get to have one now.

I get to have one now. When is it? And what will this do for your life?

September 2nd.

September 2nd.

Okay. And what is this going to do for your life?

Well, one, I had to get off birth control, unfortunately. Like, my body got mad about it. And was basically told I can never be on anything estrogen-based ever again.

Yeah, can’t take… Like, even when I hit menopause, they’re like, you cannot do this because I get wild migraines. So like, you can’t do this anymore.

You’re done. Like, then this is going to exacerbate it. It’s a known thing.

And mine present, like, strokes. So they’re very much like, let’s not. Let’s not do that.

Yeah, it’s insane. I’ve gone to the hospital twice thinking, well, one time I was 24. So I didn’t think I was having a stroke.

I was like, something is wildly wrong with me.

Yeah.

And then I was wheeled into the ER and look at the board. And it’s like, female, 24, stroke. And I was like, what?

No.

What’s happening?

No thanks.

No thank you. I don’t want that one.

Yeah. Only person it could have been. Everyone else on that board was way older.

Yeah.

And that was what’s happening.

And then, yeah, when I was like, right after I turned 30, I had another one where I was like, oh, I’m having a stroke. I need to go. And like, being who I am as a person, drove myself to the hospital.

Honestly, I would do the same thing.

I mean, it’s, is it safe? No, but it’s like.

It was five minutes away.

The nearest.

The ambulance is so expensive. Okay, the ambulance is so expensive.

And the nearest fire station was eight minutes away. I checked. It was like, who’s going to be faster?

Me. Okay, bye.

It’s me.

It’s me.

I’m going to. Yeah. I’ll check myself in.

I thought I was having a heart attack, and I still flew back to Minneapolis because I didn’t want to ruin my kid’s summer break. And then I went to urgent care, and I was like, look, I don’t think this is that big of a deal.

I’m having symptoms of a heart attack, but I doubt it’s a heart attack. It’s probably.

I don’t want to bother you. I don’t want to bother you with this at your job.

It’s a big deal. I’ll wait. All these people were here before me.

I got time. I’ll wait. It’s fine.

It’s fine. It was a severe, severe reflux, but that’s okay. Okay.

I went. I went. I went.

Okay. So September 2nd, you’re no longer going to have a uterus. Does this cure the endometriosis basically?

If you don’t have a uterus, can uterine tissue still keep growing willy nilly?

I mean.

In your body.

So when they’re in there, they’re going to check and see if there’s anything already growing outside of the uterus and remove it with cells in general, right? They’re so small, they can’t really see them with the naked eye.

So there’s still the potential that there could be something left over and that could start to grow. It is highly unlikely.

OK.

But they can’t be like, this is for sure a cure. But generally it is like my mom ended up having one eventually. Yeah.

Yeah.

And she feels better.

I assume so. Yeah. I mean, she’s nuts.

Just kidding.

OK. Yeah. Just kidding.

Yeah.

I have not talked to her since I was 17.

Yeah. And we wish her no uterine pain. And also like we wish her that from a distance and that’s OK.

All right. Well, I mean, this is, I mean, how many years coming?

OK. I just turned 32.

Oh my God. Almost 20 years.

Yeah.

Almost 20 years. You had to live in like abject pain.

Yeah.

And now it ends.

Yeah. And basically the only reason why insurance will cover it at this point is because I don’t have treatment options because I can’t take my birth control. I can’t take it.

It’s not a medically sensible thing to do. I’ve had a neurologist tell me never to do this again. Knock it off.

As well as gynecologists. What was amazing though is this gynecologist, brand new one, talking to her about my history at my annual checkup. She’s like, okay, well, you have endometriosis.

What is your eventual ideal outcome? And I was like, I don’t want kids. I don’t want to deal with this.

I would like to have a hysterectomy eventually. That is my end goal. And she just went, okay, let’s start moving on that then.

Love it.

No questions.

Oh, I love it.

And I was so ready for questions that I immediately started being like, if I ever change my mind, I can just adopt children.

There’s plenty of children in the world. I can still do this. Please don’t make this the one thing.

Yeah, yes.

And she was like, all right, whatever.

Like, you do not care.

Yeah, yeah. Because she cares more about like your wellness and your wellbeing than, you know, your potential to appropriate.

And the data on it is, there is such a tiny number of like regretful people after having a hysterectomy. It’s such a small part of the population.

Yeah, to live with pain for 20 years, and then also, you know, it’s not as though going through all of that is going to make it easy for you to like have children even if you want it to, you know what I mean?

It’s not like, it’s like, well, you’ve had so much fun down there. Let’s add in one more variable, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, and I’m so excited.

The thing that does suck is, I mean, they’re doing like a less invasive procedure, so it’s not like the full like abdominal.

They’re like, there’s already a very convenient hole, so they’re going to use that and then like go through my belly button with like a little camera to do the laparoscopic part of it.

And so they’re like, the recovery is much easier, but they’re like, it’s still going to be six to eight weeks.

Yeah, and that makes sense, right? That’s like, you got to take it easy, take it easy. Like, take it so like, this is six to eight weeks of rest that you’ve been waiting for for 20 years.

So like, I want you on the couch, make a list of things that you’re going to binge watch, maybe start a new craft, like, really like…

I’ve got five books on Tuesday.

Oh, what are you reading? What? Is it a series?

Well, on the fifth, I did pick up Accomplice to the Villain, which is the third book in this series.

So the first one’s Assistant to the Villain. That one’s the one that like got really popular on Book Talk. It’s just a very cute, cozy read.

But in general, I love sci-fi and fantasy. And now that the like romantasy thing has been identified, I’m like, all right. I mean, it just seems like there were already relationships in these books.

And that was part of what I liked about it. We’ve just like put a label on it to make women more interested in fantasy, I guess.

But I think so.

Yeah. I’m like, all right, whatever. This doesn’t seem any different to me than a lot of the other books I would read.

It’s just now it’s for sure a female protagonist.

My favorite kind. I love it. She’s so tough.

She’s so tough. She’s so tough, but so tiny.

She’s so tiny.

Why are they all so tiny?

He picked her up with his finger and thumb.

She’s so little. With his giant, like cannot fit your hands around it, makes no sense. I mean, I guess she has such tiny little bird hands that it maybe makes sense for her.

Yeah.

Yeah. She has. She’s always tiny.

She doesn’t know how beautiful she is.

Not a single clue, has no idea.

And then if she’s like been in the wilderness for a while, you can’t recognize her. Then she’s bathed by servants. She’s hot again.

Immediately.

It’s crazy.

And honestly, even when she was real dirty, still pretty hot.

Still pretty hot.

So pretty hot. Every time there’s like a sex scene in those fantasy books, and they’re like at war basically.

They’re like stripping leathers off and I’m like, that doesn’t breathe.

That doesn’t breathe.

100%. I’m like, how are they doing vaginal care in these?

Very little is my magic.

In these other, I’m like.

Hand waving it away with whatever magic system they’ve got going. Yeah, I rode horses. I’ve ridden like, I wore breeches, right?

Yeah.

They’re not even full leather.

It’s just, I would get like the full seat, and then it would be whatever performance fabric for the rest of it. And those weren’t breathable.

Those aren’t breathable. Leather’s not breathable. Whatever they’re wearing in these books is not breathable.

I grew up in Phoenix, so you know how hot it is.

I think it’s 115 today.

Yeah, terrible. It’s terrible. That was too hot.

It’s not fun.

And I grew up riding horses in these terrible, not breathable pants.

Yeah.

So I’m like, there’s no way.

That brings me out of the, that brings me out of the anticy of it all. There’s no fantasy. It’s in there.

I’m like, what?

I can do a lot of suspension of disbelief personally. I’m like, we’re just going to, I’m going to pretend there’s some magic crystal that you’re like, waving over.

I got to do that because I’ll be like.

Like.

Really? OK.

OK. Immediately when they’re like, we just got back from riding our dragons or whatever. Yeah.

And then they immediately get into it. I’m like, you maybe should have taken like five minutes.

I think you both should have bathed. That’s OK. That’s OK.

What do I know?

They could have done it in the shower.

Yeah.

Always an option.

In a tent. In a tent like at war. Like we both just saw some gruesome stuff.

Let’s do it. I know. I’m like, OK.

OK. It really brings out like the Catholic school person in me where I’m like, OK.

Oh, OK.

I guess this is happening. OK. Listening to it on audiobook, I truly was like, I can’t.

No, no, I can’t do it.

I tried one audiobook and the second they got to a sexy. I think the third time she said dick, I was like, I’m out actually. I can’t do this.

No, thank you.

I can’t listen to you tell me this.

No, no, not in traffic.

In traffic? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I can’t drive to work with this. All right.

Kylie, congratulations on your hysterectomy. Thank you for being here. And go take care of that dog who’s been so good for this whole call.

Surprisingly, less needy than usual.

But yeah, thanks so much for talking to me. Have a great day.

Hi, Mary.

Hi, Nora.

How’s it going?

I’m good, how are you? I can’t see myself, can you see me?

I can’t see you, but I think you might have something covering your camera, like a post-it or something.

Okay, there we go.

There we go. I do that all the time, and then I forget that it’s there. Okay, so you have an invisible string story for me, and I wanna hear it.

Okay, this actually happened in 2016 with my youngest daughter, who noticed something funky on her lower back and showed it to me.

And I, you know, it didn’t look suspicious, so I told her just to watch it. And a couple months later, it was still there, so I suggested that she go to a dermatologist. Long story short, they biopsied it, and told her it was malignant.

How old is she at this time?

She was 29 at the time.

Okay, yeah.

So she called me at work and said, you know, told me that the dermatologist had biopsied it, told her it was cancer, and that we have a very well-known cancer center in the city, and she had to see a sarcoma specialist.

It was a sarcoma, which is a soft tissue cancer. Yeah, yeah. And I did everything I could to find out as much as I could, remain calm, but, you know, research everything I could about this type of cancer.

So the day of her consultation with the surgeon, I put on a piece of jewelry that was my mother-in-law’s. And my mother-in-law and father-in-law have been gone for many years, but they’re still very present in our lives.

They were wonderful in-laws and wonderful grandparents. So we went, I took her to the cancer center. We checked in and were told to go up to the sarcoma unit.

And my daughter is a social butterfly. So she will talk to anybody. And we went into the waiting room where there was nobody else but us.

And she went over to the registration desk and immediately started chatting with the receptionist about her cute purse. And I zoned out because I was a ball of nerves. And I happened to look up at the TV monitor that was on in the room.

There was no sound, but the closed captioning was on. And as she’s chatting about her purse, I look up and see my mother and father-in-law’s names scrolling across the screen.

It was a local morning television show, and they were interviewing a man who had been a teaching colleague of my father-in-law’s. And they had started an annual sleep out for homeless people.

In our area, and they were interviewing this former colleague, and he was mentioning my in-law’s names just as I glanced up at the screen.

So I called my daughter’s attention to it, and she said, mom, I’ve been hoping for a sign from grandma and grandpa that everything’s gonna be okay.

So I was kind of recovering from that when they called us back to meet with a physician’s assistant to talk to us about what would happen next. And she said to my daughter, do you know what you have?

And my daughter kind of mangled the pronunciation of the condition that she’d been diagnosed with. And the PA said, well, you’re almost there. You put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

And that is a phrase that I had never heard anyone other than my father-in-law, Yudhs. So again, it was as if they were in the room with us. The PA said, what do you know about this condition?

And I said, well, I’ve done a lot of research. And she said, well, first of all, you need to know it’s not cancer. And I almost fell off the stool I was sitting on.

I had to make sure that I heard what I thought I heard. And she said, you know, have you been on Dr. Google?

Always, baby.

Yeah.

It’s my primary care physician.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so we, you know, it was something that could become cancer.

But just because it had the name sarcoma in it, didn’t mean it was cancer. So she had to have surgery, and she had a nasty incision along her lower back.

And it took, you know, took quite a bit of time before she, you know, she was feeling well again, and had to be followed up with it, this Cancer Institute in our city, for, you know, three years or so. But she, it never grew back.

It never, you know, it never became anything more than, than a benign, you know, skin condition. And she had it treated, and she moved on with her life. And she has a little one name Nora.

And Grandma and Grandpa were there and gave her the sign.

So I love your name.

Does she really?

Yes, she does.

Wow.

Wow. And Grandma and Grandpa were there. She asked for a sign, and they showed up in the most literal way.

Yep.

She was a force of nature. And believe you me, if she could pull strings from anywhere, she was pulling strings. She was making sure that my daughter was going to be okay.

Yeah, she was doing it.

I love that, Mary. Thank you for that. You, that is like, gives me chills in the good way for once.

That’s really nice. That’s really, really sweet. I love that.

Thank you so much for that. And I love knowing that it really did turn out okay. That’s so lovely.

Thank you. All right. Those are all our calls for today.

We had a myriad of technical difficulties. So many thanks to everybody who called in, attempted to call in, was open to calling in. Everybody who called, texted, left a voicemail, got back to Grace when she texted you back, made it on today.

And even the people who didn’t make it on today, we are participating in a group project. That group project is called Life. It is also called Thanks For Asking.

That is this podcast. And we are so appreciative of everybody who participates, everybody who listens. You know, there’s a lot going on.

There’s a lot going on now. There’s a lot going on in the world. There’s a lot of media to support.

And this is independent media with no giant studio behind us. And there is a reason for that. We didn’t want to.

We’ve already done that. We’ve already done that. And if you saw some of the news coming out of the podcast industry in recent weeks, you would understand why we were not interested in participating in that model again.

So every time you listen or share or rate or review, it’s incredibly helpful. It’s incredibly helpful to us. We have really changed a lot.

I know we’ve changed the format of the show. We are changing the way that we work. We are trying to work humanely.

Our little team and I, Marcel Malekebu, produces all these episodes. Grace Berry does literally just everything. She’s just a creative light in our lives.

Does a bunch of tasks that I can’t remember to do. Edits video, like there’s nothing that she can’t do. And she learns everything.

She’s just so amazing. So thank you. If you ever want to call and chat, leave a voicemail, send a text you don’t want to be on, that’s fine.

I’ll just read your text and reply to it. 612-568-4441. The email is thanks at feelingsand.co.

That’s feelingsand.co. Love getting emails. Our opening theme music is by Geoffrey Lamar Wilson.

He has a group called Lamar. They have a beautiful album that is available to stream wherever you stream music. Let’s link it in the show description if we can.

I don’t think we’ve done that before. We should. The closing theme music that you’re hearing right now is by my young son Q.

He made it on GarageBand. He’s entered that phase of his life. Big thanks to our supporting producers.

We simplified a lot. We got rid of Apple Plus. We got rid of Patreon.

We put all of the ad-free episodes, all of the archives over on my Substack, noraborialist.substack.com. And you can join monthly, you can join annually or you can just kick in a little more and become a supporting producer.

And the benefit of that is that you get your name in the credits. I don’t think there are any other benefits to it other than you just know in your heart that you were supporting independent media and you have my undying thanks.

So big thanks to Nancy Duff, Jenny Mideen, Jordan Jones, Sheila, Kathleen Langerman, Ben, Jess, Michelle Toms, Tom Stockburger, Jen, Beth Derry, Stacey Demoro, Emily Ferriso, Stephanie Johnson, Faye Barons, Amanda, Sarah Garifo, Jennifer McDagle, in

all caps, Elia Feliz-Milan, Lindsay Lund, Renee Kepke, Chelsea Sernick, Car Pan. I’m assuming it’s a nickname. LGS, all caps.

Stacey Wilson, Courtney McCown, Kaylee Sakai, Mary Beth Berry, my high school gym teacher, Jothea Disopolis, Mad, Abby Arose, Elizabeth Berkley, Kim F.

Melody Swinford, Val, Lauren Hanna, Katie, Jessica Latexier, Crystal Mann, Lisa Piven, Kate Lyon, Christina, Sarah David, Kate Beyerjohn, Ballarder-John, I don’t know, it looks French, Erin John, Joy Pollock, Crystal, Jennifer Pavelka, Jess

Blackwell, Micah, Jessica Reed, Beth Lippem, Kiara. Every time I hear the word Kiara, the name Kiara, I want to say Chiara, because I’m taking Italian on Duolingo. Not a good app, I know. And everybody’s name Kiara, so that’s Kiara.

Kiara.

Jill MacDonald, Jen Grimlin, Alexis Lane, David Binkley, Kathy Hamm, Virginia Labassi, Lizzie DeVries, Jeremy Essen, Ann DeBraszynski, Robin Roulard, Nicole Petey, Monica, Caroline Moss, my best friend mentioned in this episode, Rachel Walton, Inga,

Bonnie Robinson, Shannon Dominguez-Stevens, Penny Pesta. I cannot say that name without smiling. I love that name so much. Kaylee, Dave Gilmore, my best friend College and Jacqueline Ryder.

Thank you so much everybody for being here. Those are our supporting producers over on Substack. Substack is where we chat, we have fun.

You can talk about the episodes, you can talk about whatever you want. I send out a weekly essay. It’s just, it’s the place.

It’s kind of like the only place. It’s the only place. I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyways, that’s the episode this week. We will see you probably next week. All right.

And that is everything. Thanks for being here, everybody.